Player(s) of the Year, Baby

By: Inara | April 30th, 2008

The nominees for Ligue 1’s Player of the Year have just been announced today. While it’s no surprise that a Lyon player should be among the four nominated, this season, there are two!

Awarded by the UNFP (Union Nationale des Footballeurs Professionnels) each season, players all across France vote for who they think was the best player in Le Championnat.

This year, Karim Benzema and Jeremy Toulalan will be vying with Marseille’s Mahamdou Niang and Bordeaux’s Wendel for the top individual prize in France. The winners will be announced on May 17th on Canal+ in an awards ceremony.

All four players deserve the award. I’m not big on Wendel, but he’s been immense for Bordeaux and is one of the main reasons they are fighting Lyon for the title. Niang doesn’t get the attention he deserves, but he’s been the real hero at Marseille this year.

But my guess is that Benzema will win. He’s at the top of the scoring charts this year, has single-handedly kept Lyon at the top of the table, did his best to prolong Lyon’s Champions League adventure, and propelled them to the French Cup semifinals.

He also has history on his side - the last three Ligue 1 MVPs were all Lyonnais - Florent Malouda in 2007, Juninho in 2006, and Michael Essien in 2005. Before that, Didier Drogba won it in 2004, and Pauleta in 2003 and 2002. Zinedine Zidane and David Ginola have also won the award. So this is a very elite list of players, and Benzema joining the group at such a young age is a huge coup for him.

However, the fact that Toulalan was even nominated is I think even more impressive. First of all, he’s the unsung hero of Lyon and tends to be overlooked by everyone outside of his own team. And unlike the other three nominees, Toulalan is not an attacker and hasn’t scored a single goal this year (he’s actually only scored once in his eight years in the French top flight). But anyone who watches him knows how important he is to the team and how crucial his contributions is. It’s not just his Makelele skills. His hard working ethics, tough as nails mentality, and never say die attitude are crucial to Lyon’s team spirit. In the past few weeks that he’s been absent, Lyon just fell apart.

So if Toulalan won…I’d be very happy.

EDIT: Hatem Ben Arfa is one of the nominees for Best Young Player of the Year. Samir Nasri won it last year, Franck Ribery the year before, and Jeremy Toulalan in 2005.

Mathieu Bodmer’s second goal against Bordeaux has been nominated for Ligue 1’s goal of the year (see below). You can check out all the categories and nominees here.